"It's all right: you needn't bother!" said White hastily. "My fault!"
This handsome admission, accompanied as it was by the smile of a fond parent, not unnaturally made Janet blink. As White moved towards the window of his study, and leaned in to reach the wooden cigarette-box that stood on his desk, Mr. Jones said wisely that his guess was that Janet was one of the Marthas of this world.
Not even the most domesticated girl could be expected to relish this reading of her character, and Janet had just opened her mouth to deny it, when a diversion occurred which changed the words on her tongue to a small shriek of dismay.
From somewhere in the dense rhododendron thickets a shot had sounded, and Wally Carter, who had unlatched the gate on the farther side of the stream, and stepped on to the bridge, sagged suddenly at the knees, and crumpled up into an inanimate heap on the rough planks.
"Why - what- Good God, what's happened?" gasped Mr. Jones, his eyes starting out of his head.
White, who had turned quickly at the sound of Janet's shriek, was not in a position to obtain a view of the bridge over the stream, and demanded testily to know the meaning of his daughter's scream.
"Mr. Carter - the shot -" whimpered Janet. .
White strode up to her, and looked in the direction of her shaking finger. The sight of Wally's still form made him give an exclamation under his breath, but instead of joining Janet and Mr. Jones in their stupefied immobility, he threw the cigarette-box into a chair, spilling its contents haphazard, and snapped out: "Don't stand there like a stuck pig! Come on!"
His words jerked the other two out of their trance. Mr. Jones heaved himself out of his chair, and set off down the slope in White's wake at a lumbering trot, while Janet followed, sobbing, "Oh dear, oh dear!" in an ineffectual manner that would certainly have infuriated White had he lingered to hear it.
By the time she and Samuel Jones reached the bridge, White had raised Wally in his arms, and was feeling for his heart. He was looking rather pale, and when he drew his hand away it was reddened with blood.